The Facebook application from hell - update

Well...

The developers still haven't responded to the thread about this privacy intrusion their application is doing.

Even more people have blocked the application. (Thank goodness for that!)

BUT!

As it turns out, blocking the application is not enough!

Even though I blocked this application four days ago people can see me as being online!

Except I don't show up with my profile picture displayed in full colour. I show up as a white box with a blue questionmark.

(This is the standard icon used on Facebook for anyone who hasn't uploaded a profile picture or for anyone who has chosen to set their profile picture as being private (using the same privacy settings this application overrides)).

But when you hold the pointer of you mouse over the picture a label appears showing my name and "status".

Status is a way of quickly letting everyone in on what you're doing - like "Eira is blogging" - that you manually change whenever the mood strikes. The only things in your "status" you can't change is your name appearing and the word "is". (Which is a whole other debate on Facebook).

And if you click on the questionmark it seems to work as a link to my profile, since that's where I end up when I click it!

Now I don't know about you guys, but to me this seems highly unethical.

Much, much worse than anything Facebook itself has ever done (that I know of).

Now, I really don't know what choice I have. I don't want to have to leave Facebook (that I happen to like) because of one single stupid application programmed by some stupid, and either incompetent or just plain evil, developer(s). But something has to be done.

NOW!

(Hey - I know! Let's start a Facebook group about it!)

Once more - the name of the application is Who's online and it was developed by Applehat Studios.

LET'S START A CYBERSPACE RIOT!!!

The Facebook application from hell

Well, I guess it's time even for me to do some complaining...

But it's not Facebook in itself I have complaints about - it's an application.

On Facebook there are a number of applications developed by companies or private persons. These applications which can be added to your profile are not developed by Facebook, but Facebook offers you the service of using them. They've also (in their much debated terms of use) made a disclaimer saying they do only accept responsibility for the content of the applications developed by themselves and they are therefore not responsible for the content of these other applications.

Some applications seems mainly to be a way to distribute spam, others are mainly for fun. There are also applications designed to make it easier for the users for example to find their "friends".

Yesterday morning I became aware of an application called "Who's Online" which was developed by a company called "Applehat studios".

The purpose of this application is to display - on your profile - which of your friends are online at the moment and which of these have been recently active. It does this by displaying the presentation picture of those friends. The recently active ones show up in full colour, whereas those who haven't been recently active are faded out.

This sound quite good - doesn't it?

Well... The only trouble is that in your Facebook profile's privacy settings you can decide whether you wish to display to others whether you're online or not. If you choose to not appear as being online you won't appear as this when people view your profile and you won't appear as being online when people use Facebook's own function in the "Friends" roll down menu where you can view your friends for example by who's been online in the past five minutes or who's recently updated their profile, a s o...

Now, this "Who's Online" application overrides this! In reality this means that even if you've changed your privacy settings so as not appear to be online you still appear as being online on the sites of your friends who've added this application.

Seeing as how many people have broadband connections that in effect means they're online 24-7 lot's of people have chosen to change their settings so as to not appear as being online. But, as I've pointed out, this application overrides that!

If any of your friends have added this application the developers seems to believe they have the right to access your information. You don't even have to add the application yourself - it's enough that one of your friends add it! This means that you can (since you haven't given your permission to them to access your information) completely oblivious to the fact, be sharing information that you've made a conscious decision not to share.

Yes, I am aware that every time I go online a whole bunch of information is gathered about me.
Yes, I'm also aware that in most cases I haven't given my permission to this (not expressively anyway).

BUT!

Seeing as how this application overrides your privacy settings and seeing as how there are potentially millions of Facebook users who can have their privacy violated and not even be aware of it, I've decided to bring this up anyway.

On the discussion board for this application I started a thread about this privacy intrusion yesterday morning, hoping to get a response from one of the developers. The response I was hoping to get was that they would fix this. But no response came. What did come was responses from other Facebook users who agreed that this was unacceptable and should be fixed. Several users have now chosen to report this application as violating their privacy, so hopefully this will be continued...

For now the only thing that seems to work is to go to the applications site and block it. That will stop you from appearing on your friends' sites since you're blocking the application from accessing your information.

I would therefore like to ask that anyone who finds this manner of intruding on people's privacy appalling (yes, Facebook users are people, too) to spread the word about what this application does.

I would also like to ask all Facebook users who find this appalling to block the application and report it to Facebook.

There is power in numbers! If enough people react perhaps we can make something happen.

P.S.
If you're curious about the company who developed this application you can visit http://applehat.com/

I did...

P.P.S
I would be very surprised if this was the only application that violates the Facebook users' privacy. So before you add a new application - find out what it does and how it works! As they say: better to be safe than sorry.

Happy surfing!

Facebook fray

In the newspaper today the front page headline was "Facebook owns your pictures".

Then there came an article about how baddie-bad-bad Facebook is for putting a clause in their "Terms of use" that says (and I've highlighted the potentially offensive sections for your ease);

[...]User Content Posted on the Site

You are solely responsible for the photos, profiles, messages, notes, text, information, music, video, advertisements, listings, and other content that you upload, publish or display (hereinafter, "post") on or through the Service or the Site, or transmit to or share with other users (collectively the "User Content"). You may not post, transmit, or share User Content on the Site or Service that you did not create or that you do not have permission to post. You understand and agree that the Company may, but is not obligated to, review the Site and may delete or remove (without notice) any Site Content or User Content in its sole discretion, for any reason or no reason, including without limitation User Content that in the sole judgment of the Company violates this Agreement or the Facebook Code of Conduct, or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of users or others. You are solely responsible at your sole cost and expense for creating backup copies and replacing any User Content you post or store on the Site or provide to the Company.

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.[...]

And in "Facebook's privacy policy" it states that:

[...] The Information We Collect

When you visit Facebook you provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected by us and Web Site use information collected by us as you interact with our Web Site.

When you register with Facebook, you provide us with certain personal information, such as your name, your email address, your telephone number, your address, your gender, schools attended and any other personal or preference information that you provide to us.

When you enter Facebook, we collect your browser type and IP address. This information is gathered for all Facebook visitors. In addition, we store certain information from your browser using "cookies." A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user. We use session ID cookies to confirm that users are logged in. These cookies terminate once the user closes the browser. By default, we use a persistent cookie that stores your login ID (but not your password) to make it easier for you to login when you come back to Facebook. You can remove or block this cookie using the settings in your browser if you want to disable this convenience feature.

When you use Facebook, you may set up your personal profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, add applications, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalized features. In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your friend list. When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.

You post User Content (as defined in the Facebook Terms of Use) on the Site at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users with whom you may choose to share your pages and information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content.[...]

[...] Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.[...]

Personally I'm not overly concerned seeing as how I always expect people to hi-jack everything I do/publish online and I therefore do not do/publish classified or "secret" stuff, or pictures I'd care if others use...

Sometimes I think people are just a little too trusting when it comes to this whole internet thing.

But still - writing clauses about "owning" whatever information the users of a service sends through the net is getting more and more common, so you should always read through the terms of users agreement carefully before signing up to anything. Who'd ever sign a contract for a mortgage or sign up for medical experiments and NOT read the fine print?

(Yeah - I know - loads of people! But It's not very clever, now is it?)

Well, if Facebook collects information from this blog and finds it to be in disagreement with their terms of use they have the right to shut down my account which would be a bitch since I like the service they provide. But seeing as how these policies can be found at public sites I don't see how it would be in disagreement with them. And I don't really think there's something strange or unusual with these terms of use - I've seen far worse.

I guess we'll just have to see if I still have a Facebook account by the end of the week.

Woah! That was a long post... Sorry.

Oh, yeah. One last thing - by "you" I don't necessarily mean you in particular. That was meant as an all encompassing "you" as in "me, you - everyone".

That's all for now. Will be back!